The Next Linux Kernel Could Be a Big Deal

Linux will finally have support for StrongARM platforms. After more than 10 years of work, Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux and the leader of kernel development) stated in a recent update, "One thing of note is how the long-time ARM generic kernel work (aka "multiplatform") is pretty much done after 10+ years. Congrats to everybody involved. The StrongARM platforms remain with their separate kernels and are expected to stay so, but compared to where things were a decade ago, this is a pretty big step."

Beyond that major advancement, the 5.19 kernel will be rather boring for standard users, while also being on the "bigger" side. The majority of the new additions/changes to the 5.19 kernel are hardware-related driver support. Along with the architecture updates (such as NVMe support for Apple Silicon and updates for HPE GXP and LoongArch64 architecture), improvements to tooling and documentation, and some minor core kernel updates, kernel 5.19 might be the most "boring" big deal to have come around in some time. 

The 5.19 kernel is scheduled to release around July 2022.